Fans have wondered about the show’s series finale, in which Snow — having been relegated back to the Night’s Watch — left Castle Black and was seen heading beyond the Wall. Was he was going on a ranging mission? Was he merely escorting the Free Folk? Or was he leaving the Night’s Watch behind and rejoining the Wildlings to live with them?

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Turns out, that final assumption (which, admittedly, was the most popular consensus online) is correct.

“[S]eeing him go beyond the Wall back to something true, something honest, something pure with these people he was always told he belongs with — the Free Folk — it felt to me like he was finally free,” said the actor, who is currently nominated for the Emmys’ Best Actor in a Drama Series award. “Instead of being chained and sent to the Wall, it felt like he was set free. It was a really sweet ending. As much as he had done a horrible thing [in killing Daenerys], as much as he had felt that pain, the actual ending for him was finally being released.”

So there you have it. It’s a fitting end for Jon Snow that he turns his back on Westeros after so much war and heartache, and also turns his back on the puritanical servitude of the Night’s Watch. Somewhere, Ygritte is rather pleased.